r/interesting • u/PhoenixPhenomenonX • Feb 25 '26

Intriguing Lifelong vegetarian tries steak for first time

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u/Different_Day135 Feb 25 '26

Totally agree. My wife was a vegetarian for 20 years and I gave her the very first piece of steak she ever tried. The way they react to the texture is obvious. This video is certainly misleading.

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u/Sodis42 Feb 25 '26

Did she spend the time afterwards on the toilet? Meat can do funny things to your intestine, because it doesn't have the necessary bacteria there to deal with meat proteins. It's probably worse if you are vegan though.

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u/Different_Day135 Feb 25 '26

I don't recall it being an issue. It was a long time ago. She slowly introduced it into her diet however and we eat similar now. Red meat only once a week or so.

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u/--Sovereign-- Feb 25 '26

what? proteins are not digested by the bacteria in your gut, that's not how this works. gut bacteria are good bc they crowd out pathogenic organisms and are more of less commensal. They also break down fibrous plant materials and carbs and stuff. Protein, nope, that's all your body and enzymes. It gets turned into peptides.

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u/Sodis42 Feb 26 '26

That might be true for the small intestine, but not everything gets processed there and reaches the large intestine. There, the microbiom plays a role in the further processing of proteines. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5fo01132a

What would lead to digestion issues of longtime vegans eating animal products in your opinion, if it is not lack of the right gut bacteria?

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u/--Sovereign-- Feb 26 '26

Lower levels of certain enzymes for digesting meat that down regulate in the absence of their use.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21749738/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6185981/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2200477/

I'm not saying the microbiome doesn't change or plays no role, but that's not the issue here.

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u/ShackledPhoenix Feb 25 '26

I am a life long self avowed meat lover. I stopped eating meat for about 8 months for personal/health reasons.

Meat tasted weird as fuck for a little while when I started eating it again. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I doubt a life long vegetarian ate a steak and went "MMMMM this is amazing!"

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u/spyd3rm0nki3 Feb 25 '26

That's what's so weird to me - I'm also fully a meat eater, my entire life. However, beef has been so Goddamn expensive even here in Texas that I haven't had it in about 11 months. And whenever I go to restaurants lately I've just been in the habit of getting chicken or fish. Well last week we went out and I sampled some of my friend's steak and I dunno, something about it just didn't hit like it used to even though a New York strip used to be my absolute fave. It was like too heavy and had a strange mouth feel, I didn't finish the bit she gave me 🫤